Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Battle of Andrassos

Article promoted by Peacemaker67 (talk) via MilHistBot (talk) 09:20, 12 May 2019 (UTC) &laquo; Return to A-Class review list

Battle of Andrassos
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One of the main and best-described battles between the Byzantines and their long-time 10th-century nemesis, Sayf al-Dawla, Andrassos set the stage for the great successes of Nikephoros II Phokas in the 960s, and the reduction of Sayf al-Dawla's emirate of Aleppo to a Byzantine vassal. The article was promoted to Ga back in 2017, but has languished since since I could not give it my attention. Eventually I would like to push this to FA. Any and all comments and suggestions are more than welcome. Constantine  ✍  16:27, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Support Comments by Gog the Mild
I have boldly made a number of copy edits which you will want to check.
 * The lead seems short for an article of this length.
 * Still looks short to me, re MOS:LEADLENGTH.
 * Expanded again.


 * "Committed to the spirit of jihad, during the next two decades the Hamdanid ruler emerged as the main enemy of the Byzantines, who derided him as the "impious Hamdan": by the time of his death in 967, he was said to have fought against them in over forty battles." It may be me, but I don't see why you have used a colon rather than a full stop.
 * Hmmm, my thinking was that this was connected to being the "main enemy" of the Byzantines. You are right, however, that it is not needed.
 * "Warfare on Byzantium's eastern frontiers then subsided for a couple of years" "a couple of years" - do you mean 'two years'? If so, it may be better to say so. You suggest that the initial raid was in 946 ("After his establishment in Aleppo, in winter 945–946") and the second in 948 ("recommenced only in 948"). Ie a 'pause' of only one year; which barely seems worthy of detailed mention.
 * This is actually not only a reference for Sayf's raids, but of a more general period of quiet, which was quite unusual. Again, however, rephrasing is probably best.
 * "who had previously defeated his father in battle" If the defeat was during the same campaign, 'earlier' would be a better word than "previously". (I would also recommend replacing the semi colon in this sentence with a full stop.
 * Rewrote and expanded the section, especially since Leo's victory of 950 is almost a template for Andrassos.
 * "the tide began to turn against the Hamdanid" Should that be Hamdanids?
 * Sayf al-Dawla as meant here, so changed to "Hamdanid emir".
 * "and the Domestic Nikephoros Phokas in person" Would "Domestic" be a reference to Domestic of the Schools, identified earlier as being the Byzantine commander in chief?
 * Yes, but unnecessary here, removed.
 * "who according to the Byzantine chroniclers had been appointed as Domestic of the West" What is a "Domestic of the West"?
 * Clarified.
 * "advanced unopposed as far as the fortress of Charsianon, capital of the theme of the same name". Optional suggestion - give an idea of how far inside Byzantine territory that was.
 * "confident of his ability and judgment, had grown haughty" Just for discussion - "confident of his ability and judgment", ok; "had grown haughty", sounds a bit PoV.
 * Is it worth, briefly, mentioning who the Tarsiots are?
 * The inhabitants of Tarsus? I thought this obvious...
 * Not to me. I have not previously come across a reference to the inhabitants of Tarsus. I would imagine that very few readers have, I had assumed it a reference to a troop type. (Like psiloi or turcopoles.)
 * Fixed.


 * Any chance of a translation of "De velitatione bellica"?
 * Added.
 * "opened the path for Nikephoros Phokas' subsequent exploits; subsequent disasters inflicted" "subsequent" twice in three words. (And an, IMHO, unnecessary semi colon.)
 * Rewritten.
 * "Mopsuestia was besieged but held out, but Nikephoros returned" "but" twice in four words.
 * Fixed.
 * Wallis Budge needs a publisher. And the link is dead.
 * Publisher added, but the link works perfectly for me.
 * Checklink says its dead too.
 * Odd. I've accessed the page from three different browsers, a number of IP addresses and intranets, and it still works perfectly Nevertheless, I've added a link to the Wayback Machine archive.

A nice piece of work.
 * Expanded my comment on the lead and replied to two of your comments. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:30, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

All good. I note as a non-actionable observation that in another article of yours which I have recently copy edited you refer to the inhabitants of Tarsus as Tarsians. There is, of course, no MoS requirement for consistency between articles.

A couple of points regarding the additions you have made. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:12, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Infobox. I think that "in killed and captured" can be dispensed with. A reader is likely to assume that that is what is meant by "casualties".
 * "Following a series of Byzantine defeats in the previous years" is unclear as to who was defeated. I would normally read it as the Byzantines being defeated.
 * Fixed/clarified both, I also added the strengths of the combatants in the infobox for context on the 300 horsemen
 * A splendid read. Thank you. Gog the Mild (talk) 22:11, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Source review

 * All sources properly formatted
 * Consider explanding PmbZ as it wasn't immediately obvious what it stood for.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:52, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Changed, although TBH I am not entirely happy with it. Constantine  ✍  10:55, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Image review

 * File:Leo Phokas defeats Hambdan at Adrassos.png - this needs a US tag (PD-US works here, obviously). Parsecboy (talk) 20:09, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Done. Constantine  ✍  15:17, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Support Comments by Sturmvogel_66

 * As per MOS:SEASON, replace summer 960 with mid-960 and the same with the other seasonal references
 * I replaced it in a couple of cases, but I don't think that this is well applicable here; on the one hand, as precise dates are not known, I cannot replace "early summer 960" or "winter 945–946" with anything; on the other hand, given the date and context of the article, a possible confusion with the southern hemisphere is rather unlikely.


 * Put the citations in numerical order
 * I found only one case, fixed.


 * Nicely done.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:41, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks Sturmvogel 66 :). Anything else? As usual, if you have any further comments for improvement, please let me know. Constantine  ✍  08:26, 19 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Lot's of stuff that I'd like to see explicated, but unless somebody finds a few leaves of parchment that were overwritten...--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:07, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Comments Support by CPA-5

 * putting an end to the Muslim border emirate there.[6][5][8] Suggest ordering the refs numerically here.
 * Fixed.


 * commanders "Hamid ibn Namus" and "Musa-Saya Khan".[44][41] Same as above.
 * Fixed.


 * into Byzantine Asia Minor Link "Asia Minor" or if it is a province or region within Byzantine then link "Byzantine Asia Minor".
 * Fixed.


 * the tide began to turn against the Hamdanid emir "the Hamdanid Emir".
 * The city of Hadath was sacked again "The City of Hadath".
 * confronting the Hamdanid emir fell Same as above "the Hamdanid Emir".
 * portrait of the Hamdanid prince "the Hamdanid Prince".
 * The Hamdanid prince himself barely Same as above.
 * At the same time, the Hamdanid prince Same as above.
 * Disagree on the above; "city", "emir", "prince" are descriptive terms, not part of a title or proper name. It is the same as in "the Hamdanid ruler" or "the Byzantine general".
 * Hmm but city should be capitalised by MOS:POLITICALUNITS. Cheers.
 * Precisely not: "but as generic words and rough descriptions (sometimes best omitted for simplicity) they do not". The "City of Smithville" in the xample is capitalized because it is a political unit with a proper name. Hadath is described as a city, there was no body or jurisdiction with the name "City of Hadath".
 * I reckon I have some problems when you ought have to capitalise titles or generic words. Cheers.


 * on the southwestern Taurus Mountains American southwestern.
 * In the image File:Arab-Byzantine_frontier_zone.svg Map of the Arab–Byzantine frontier zone in southeastern Asia Minor, with the major fortresses American southeastern
 * Don't know what exactly you point out with these two. You mean that in BritEng it is different?
 * Yes tottaly correct. Americans uses southwestern while Britons uses south-western or even south western. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 18:43, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
 * That's what I thought, but I am not sure that this distinction is so clear-cut: the Cambridge English Dictionary seems to even prefer it over the hyphenated version (as opposed to the OED). I think this is one of the several cases where there are believed to be differences between British and American usage, but the British usage actually encompasses the American one (e.g. the -ize/-ise issue) so that both are (or have become) equally valid.
 * That's highly possible. It looks the familiar issue as the connexion/connection or gaol/jail or even burnt/burned issues personaly I use connexion, gaol and burnt and not a mix of them or use conection, jail and burned. But as long "a dictionary" uses that word in both Britsh/American English then it's okay I guess. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 19:15, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Also the image File:Arab-Byzantine_frontier_zone.svg should have a hyphen too. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 19:33, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Oh, yes, sorry. Fixed.


 * Hey Constantine here is my last comment. You said the -ize/ise issue in one of your reply, well here I have a comment about that.
 * destabilisation.
 * maximize.
 * Christianized. Please standerise one of them please.
 * "Destabilisation" is part of a direct quote, so I cannot change it. Otherwise I am using the -ize forms throughout.

That's anything from me. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 14:07, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Hey sorry mate for disturbing you but my comments are here for awhile. So could you please address them? Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 13:24, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi CPA-5, sorry, I had overlooked them. I will address them ASAP. Thanks for the heads up. Constantine  ✍  18:31, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Great to see you again Constantine. Take your time just wondering or you forgot this one. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 18:46, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * it's not that important, but you probably wanted to ping Cplakidas, not me. --Constantine (talk) 07:06, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Oops didn't know there were two Constantines one of which is called Cplakidas my apologies. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 15:15, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Hi CPA-5, I've gone through the points you raised, please have a look. Constantine  ✍  16:40, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Hey Constantine I replied to your responses. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 18:43, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi CPA-5, likewise :). Constantine  ✍  18:54, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I reckon this one ready to go. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 08:16, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
 * G'day, I'm just getting a timeout error on the asiaminor.ehw.gr URLs . Have you visited them recently? Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:46, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi Peacemaker67, I also get an error. This has happened to me in the past a few times, but then it works again. I've definitely visited them several times in the past few months, and it was working. Given that the website of the parent organization is up and running, this is probably a temporary problem. Constantine  ✍  08:53, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
 * If you have been able to visit, I agree it is probably intermittent. No prob then. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 09:02, 12 May 2019 (UTC)